KBR Training Case Study:"Patience"
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Day 31
Sunday's wind gave way to Monday's rain. The footing was still decent in the front pasture so I turned Nell and Patience out with Mello for a good portion of the day. They grazed and occasionally had bouts of silliness in the cool drizzle. After a few of hours Mikey, who was loose in the stable grazing, wandered up to see what was going on. Patience was nearby checking out remnants in the pasture manger and Mikey wandered over to see her. They met at the pasture gate. Nell, who has an obsessive crush on Mikey saw this going on, came racing up squealing, then spun around headed backwards toward Patience, rabbit kicking with each step. Patience was having none of this. Caught by surprise she rammed the gate. This particular gate doesn't have a very strong latch and it popped open and Patience got herself clear of the fracas. The gate bumped Mikey when it swung open and he wheeled and took off with Nell in hot pursuit. Great. I now had two fairly green mustangs loose on the place and Keno, who watched the calamitous goings on in quiet amazement was now bucking and farting and racing around the arena. I decided to gather up Patience first since she was the victim in all of this mess. I found her in the aisleway within sight of her paddock. I didn't have a halter so I just walked up to her, passed the progress string over her neck, held it by both ends and she led like a lady back to her paddock. I checked her over for any damage, which appeared to be limited to a small nick on her forehead over her right eye, probably from crashing through the gate. We did a little bit of basic work in her paddock and then I decided to let her rest up and finish some hay that was left over from her breakfast. On a couple of days which followed we saddled up and Patience did her longe line drills under saddle as well as took me leaning over her while she stood still. She got pretty sweaty but didn't want to have anything to do with getting a bath. On Wednesday Cindy came by and led Patience over to the wash stand. I offered her the end of the running hose for a drink. She pulled it into her mouth and played with it for at least 5 minutes. Afterwards I could pour water all over her face, although she still wasn't happy about getting her body wet. We did some longeing near the macaw flight cage. She was a little disturbed by the movement of the bird and would rush by the cage. As she settled down, I longed her closer and closer to the trailer. At one point she stopped at the entrance to the trailer. I asked her to "Step up!" which she did. Her first honest trailer loading and it took all of about 10 seconds. Cindy loaded and unloaded Patience a few times to prove it wasn't a fluke. (You guys with tough loading horses, eat your hearts out! Patience makes it look easy.) Coming up next: Saddle up! |
At the beauty parlor:
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